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A third young man has been arrested in connection with the murder of Chinese student Jiayi Li, also known as Kiko.
Police say a 19-year-old student was arrested this evening and will appear in the Auckland District Court tomorrow to face a charge of Accessory after the fact of Murder.
Li's body was found in the boot of her car in Hamilton yesterday, two weeks after she disappeared. Two men have been charged with her murder.
Meanwhile Li's parents are on their way to New Zealand from the Chinese capital Beijing to collect her body.
They are due to arrive tomorrow to meet with detectives to try to make sense of what has happened to their daughter. About 20 police continue to work on the case.
Li was the pin-up girl for international students at Western Springs College but news of her gruesome death has left the school in a state of disbelief.
"A number of people are stunned, upset, can't believe it," says Ken Havill, Western Springs College principal.
She was fondly known as Kiko at the college, an adored student who had many friends.
"We've got some upset kids who'll need counselling. That provision is being put in place at the moment. (We also have) some upset teachers," says Havill.
Li started school in February last year with dreams of working in early childhood education. But her parents pulled her out of school in July.
"We don't have any record of the reasons that they wished her to move on," says Havill.
The Ministry of Education has launched its own investigation. Li had become a student at the St George Institute of Learning. It is obligated under the code of practice to provide pastoral care and the Ministry wants to know if that happened.
A written report has been requested from both St George and Western Springs College.
"I've got every confidence in our international students department," says Havill.
But some say the code is not enough and more must be done to keep international students safe.
"They get in to the wrong crowd and they might think that New Zealand life is sort of boring or whatever and so they hang out at night and get in to drunk crowds and don't know how to protect themselves," says Manying Ip, a Chinese issues researcher.
"The young people of this generation come from a single child family and they have been very protected when they were inside China. They are not sophisticated when it comes to social interactions, so they do need clear guidelines."
She says the death may put Chinese parents off sending their children to New Zealand.
"We are perceived to be a safe place and not as dangerous in terms of guns and drugs and things like that."
Deja vu
Steven Young from the New Zealand Chinese Association told TV ONE's Breakfast programme he suspects there is a feeling of deja vu among Chinese communities in New Zealand.
"We don't really know the facts, but I suspect there's some aspect of deja vu because this has happened before," he says.
In a similar case in September 2007, the body of An An Liu, 27, was found in the boot of the family car. Her husband, Nai Yin Xue, was convicted of her murder in June 2009.
Young says the Chinese community is probably feeling a sense of shock and disappointment at the latest death. He says Chinese students often take a while to assimilate into New Zealand culture and will initially only associate with fellow students.
"I think most of them, their support network, are their fellow students that they see every day. And also, these days, they will be in touch with their families if not daily, at least weekly."
He says Chinese students tend to get online almost immediately.
"One of the first things that students do when they come to New
Zealand is they get online almost immediately and make contact with
their friends ... it's a virtual community apart form their school
friends."
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